Area X is not your average patch of American land.
Over the years, no less than 11 expeditions have crossed the border into Jeff VanderMeer’s preternatural territory, only to return with strange illnesses or crippling cancer. Assuming they returned at all. Undeterred by this horrible track record, the Powers That Be mount an all-female 12th expedition to Area X, featuring a team comprised of an anthropologist, surveyor, biologist, and psychologist.
That is, in a nutshell, the elevator pitch of Annihilation, VanderMeer’s literary trilogy-starter that’s headed for the big screen under the watchful eye of Alex Garland (Dredd, Ex Machina). Pegged for a release in February of 2017, Garland’s adaptation has tapped an all-star cast headed up by Natalie Portman, who can be seen searching for trouble on the film’s new poster, which you can check out in the gallery down below.
Coming equipped with the tagline “Fear What’s Inside,” this one-sheet is a dark and ominous tease of what’s to come next month, when Paramount’s much anticipated horror adventure touches down in theaters. From what we’ve heard, it’s set to be a “mind-blowing” and “surreal” experience, too, as VanderMeer recently said the following about the pic:
The first thing I realized is that even though Alex Garland says he’s not an auteur, he is an auteur. So my expectation was to not have anything to do with the movie and that’s the actual fact. He wrote the script and he was kind enough to keep me in the loop during every part of the process, but that wasn’t for me to put my two cents in, basically. It was just so I would know what was going on.
It’s actually more surreal than the novel. There are a couple places where I was like, ‘I might need an anchor here.’ The ending is so mind-blowing and in some ways different from the book that it seems to be the kind of ending that, like 2001 or something like that, people will be talking about around the watercooler for years… Visually, it’s amazing. I must say that and that’s all I probably should say.
Excited yet? Annihilation is penciled in for a release on February 23rd, 2018, exactly one week after the launch of Marvel’s Black Panther solo flick.
